A Momentary Lapse

...a true story Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin... standing apart, the other houses still intact with painted jalousies and window curtains. She must have fallen asleep, the cigarette still dangling from her arthritic fingers; I never saw her without one. She told me of her life in Poland during the war, but not her suffering, she never spoke of that. She smiled wanly as she showed me old photos of her family and friends taken on holiday when she was younger, long before the ravages of war. TV was her constant companion along with her nurse and her beloved Pekingese, always sitting on her bed. We'd talk for hours. She was always interested in my schoolwork, and why didn't I have a girlfriend? Now she lay in hospital small and silent; there was nothing I could do but hope and pray. When they drew the sheet up over her I felt an emptiness, but no tears came. Fourteen years old, my first death up close. When I got home to mum and dad, only then in their comforting embrace did I sob my heart out. Her house was just a shell, a burnt-out ruin...